These are synopses of my past postings on experimental cooking at home using molecular gastronomy techniques and experimenting with non-classical flavour combinations. Click on the links for the posts.

Has it been that long? Almost a year since I last cooked something really interesting at home. It's been a very busy year for me professionally. This dish arose from the need to do something with a couple of sweet potatoes. Click on the link to discover what unlikely pair of ingredients I used to achieve an excellent balance of flavour, texture and colour.

This time I started out with a pair of unlikely ingredients - saffron and beetroot. Very different in taste, colour and texture - as well as price! The difficult part was not so much matching the flavours as creating complementary textures. My dish is soft saffron gel with purée and air of beetroot and it tasted fantastic.

Searching on the internet, I found a clip of spherification on a commercial scale - El Bulli's apple caviar, as demonstrated to a delighted audience at Lo Mejor de la Gastronomía 2003 in San Sebastian. Ferran Adrià said: "This dish has made me reflect upon the value of creativity... I’ve asked customers what they consider more of a luxury – to eat Beluga caviar or to eat apple caviar for the first time?" Click for the video clip and recipe.

It came as a surprise to me the other day when I discovered that the amazing combination of chocolate, olive oil and sea salt was not a modern invention of Ferran Adrià, but can be traced back to the second world war when it was consumed as a special treat by food-deprived Catalans. Here's my take on this classic recipe, made by me at home last weekend.

It's taken me a while, but I've done my first successful experimenting with Texturas. Together with fellow chef Michael, we pooled our chemicals and equipment and set about making a broccoflower espuma delivered by siphon to accompany our botifarra negra. For dessert we made rosewater caviar of different sizes, served with fresh strawberries and vanilla ice cream. An experimental success and, more importantly, great food to eat.

Texturas are the weapons of the culinary alchemist - first developed by Ferran Adrià at the world's #1 ranked restaurant, El Bulli here in Catalunya. We use some of these chemicals and tools at work, but what I'm planning to do with them is to experiment at home. Hopefully this will be the first of several posts on gelification, spherification, emulsification, thickening and texturising techniques in my home kitchen.